Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Nicholas Carr in a recent post: “Is Google Making us Stupid?” discussed his basic feeling of how our minds deal with the information overload in the digital age. Or more precisely, how our minds are altered by the new half real, half virtual world we find ourselves in. So much of it rang true that I am tempted to go beyond just quoting his piece, but to actually dissect llines of it piece by piece. I’m not capable of reading a long blog post, I can barely read a blog post period. I skim. I look over the key words, trying to grasp the main concept. Even when researching a development issue or trying to define a new strategy I look for the “do this, now do this” part to get my desired result as quickly as possible, and then am disappointed when the solution isn’t miraculously achieved when I performed actions I didn’t even vaguely  understand. I am a  child. I am clueless.. I am lost in the Internet age…

That’s only half the truth however. While most people involved in Social Media would agree that at times, they also perceive that they are losing the ability to digest a long piece of sustained one sided flow of information from one source, they also believe that this “power browsing”, as Nicholas described it is, what gives them their super human powers. What is special about reading something for a sustained amount of time, such as a book, is the ability to set the book down, contemplate, understand, then go back to reading. What power browsing does is allow for people to connect the dots on a higher level. Let’s not forget that inside of each of our brains is still a powerful processing unit capable of quickly reading through garbage, processing, and taking away what is important. While you may now be skimming my post, you still might catch an enlightening sentence here and there and discard the rest of my over indulgent crap.

My question remains, however, do we actually allow ourselves enough time to contemplate? Are we really connecting the dots to deeper understanding or just flailing through an ADD fantasy? What do you think?

BTW, I kept this short because I feel, just like me, most of you would have quit reading by now if it was longer. (is this even bad?)

Somewhere in the midst of pushing for change in DC, I started throwing out the concept that I should be president, I started talking about it in chat rooms, blogs and to anyone that would listen. I never thought it would go far, but it is starting to catch on. I need your support, however, to keep this going! Email me to see how you can help! We’ve been getting quite a bit of press lately, below is a clip from Channel 3 News here in DC.

One thing I constantly have to remind myself is to accept criticism. Not even just accept it. Relish in it. Roll around on the floor in it. Actively seek it out from every source, from a babbling idiot on the street, to technology experts, to tech savvy kids that are convinced of their own unalienable 20-20 vision of the future.

In starting EV, we have sought the council of CEOs, developers, bloggers, venture capitalists, friends, colleagues, and anyone else that would listen to our own vision.

From them we have heard the good, bad, and indifferent:

“If you don’t do this, someone else will, and it WILL be here.”

“Why would you make a desktop platform, everything is going web”

“It seems you have the bull by the tail. It’s too big and your resources are too sparse”

Each of these spats of –isms, and many more we have heard, is true to a point and helpful to us, but they certainly can’t stop our progress.

“You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn” - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

One thing that has constantly struck me as we go through the process of building a company is to relish criticism and mistakes. If we didn’t we would not be able to keep moving forward. In every area of business, communication and software development there are people that are better, faster, and stronger than you. But to improve and to reach new levels you have to be able to talk to an expert in that area, accept the truth of what they are saying, improve and keep moving forward. One thing to me is clear, much like we all do with the concept of death; You must blind yourself to failure and to actively repress that success is not a given or you can never be successful. 

And a moment of zen: Julie’s suggestion for our blog header:

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